What you’re describing is also what those who’d supported the idea that an “electronic therapist” may provide benefits to a suffering person have suggested.

There are indeed possibilities here; though I’d say there seem as many pratfalls.

You are correct in saying that a cognitive therapist is a listener. But they’re a trained, professional listener, who is attuned to the nuances of sentience. A cognitive therapist will listen so well that they’ll be able to point out things you’ve repeated, associations you’d made, and indicate these to you.

eg: “You’ve mentioned your mother every time you’ve described the difficulties in your relationships.” or “You’ve mentioned your uncle three times and began fidgeting with your clothing. What can you tell me about him?”

So yes, it’s a job of listening. But it’s listening very attentively, and also watching a patient as they become tense, or struggle for words. It’s observing. The reason that therapist is a highly trained observer is because we don’t observe ourselves, don’t recognize our own problematic patterns. Because maybe that uncle molested the patient and the patient is repressing the memories, while still suffering from them.

A Chatbot may be a good venue for ourselves to vent our feelings and maybe for us to recognize some of our patterns though I suspect we’d not do that very well because we’re basically talking to ourselves, while a bot which can’t see us and has no sentience responds to our prompts. We already can’t see our patterns. Nor will ChatGPT, which does not retain previous chats. One could write the same irrational obsession to ChatGPT every day, and ChatGPT will never recognize an obsession exists.

It’s writing therapy, I suppose. But does it provide guidance? And can it separate our good ideas from our harmful ones? I’m doubtful about that and if it could be trained to, such a tool could actually be employed as a brain-washing machine. I don’t consider that hyperbole: Imagine the Chinese government mandating that its citizens speak with a government Chatbot. They already have “re-education” camps and “behavioral ranking” systems.

I’m reminded of this scene.